The European Commission held a conference on clean transport fuels last month at which AEGPL participated in one of the panel discussions. In a room packed with around 450 stakeholders from European and national institutions, industry and civil society, participants discussed way forward in developing alternative fuels today.

As well as joining the panel discussions, AEGPL managed a stand in the exhibition where around 100 Autogas roadmaps were distributed during the course of the day.

At the morning roundtable, European Commission Vice-President for Mobility and Transport, Siim Kallas, delivered the opening speech, highlighting that alternative fuels will strengthen the European market and that a concrete strategy for developing infrastructure is necessary. In a video message, MEP Mr Carlo Fidanza underlined the importance of the legislative proposal on alternative fuels infrastructure. He stressed that LPG has to be part of the Directive since it is an alternative fuel and it does not have a full network across Europe.

Among the institutional speakers, Lithuania Vice-Minister of Transport, Arijandas Šliupas, pointed out that the proposal enjoys broad support in the Council, though Member States major do wish to ensure flexibility in its implementation.

Following the morning coffee break, Chairman, Olivier Onidi, from the European Commission, recognized the role and the contribution of LPG to the European market of alternative fuels, and was followed by a concise presentation from AEGPL General Manager, Samuel Maubanc.

Samuel gave a concise overview of Autogas in Europe today, highlighting that “Compared to other alternative fuels, LPG is further along in terms of market uptake, with 7,000,000 vehicles and almost 30,000 stations in the EU. However support for infrastructure is important in some countries given that the filling station network is uneven in the EU”. He also underlined that enormous investment that the LPG sector has already made in its network, and that the LPG and Autogas sector creates thousands of jobs across Europe.”

The overall discussion focused mainly on the challenges for natural gas and electric vehicle infrastructure, which compared to LPG is very thin on the ground, with speakers taking a number of views on the best way forward in terms of European legislation. There was also a general view that technology for electric cars in particular, still needed to be improved to be fully viable for the mass market.

For AEGPL, the event was an excellent opportunity to engage with stakeholders from the industry, institutions and civil society, and place Autogas at the heart of the debate around the future of alternative fuels in Europe.